Tag: Scheduling & Utilization

High labor expenses? Better staffing and scheduling can cut costs

OR Business Performance is a series intended to help OR managers and directors improve the success of their business.   The OR labor budget usually takes a back seat to supplies and equipment. But labor costs can still create significant spending problems. Many hospital surgery departments use nursing full-time equivalents…

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By: OR Manager
September 1, 2013
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The right strategies can help increase OR utilization

OR Business Performance is a series intended to help OR managers and directors improve the success of their business.   How do you improve an OR’s financial performance? Last month’s column focused on two key strategies: using data to identify improvement opportunities and rallying support for organizational change. These strategies…

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By: OR Manager
May 1, 2013
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Safer surgery: Is your scheduling process as accurate is it could be?

Ten elements of safer surgery. Second in a series.   Much of the effort to ensure correct-site surgery focuses on preoperative verification. But scheduling is where it all begins. Capturing complete and accurate information when the case is booked is key to preventing errors down the line. Scheduling flaws are…

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By: OR Manager
February 1, 2013
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An electronic path for streamlining scheduling

An electronic form surgeons’ offices use to place scheduling orders has streamlined the preoperative process and sharply reduced case cancellations for a Chicago-area hospital. Cancellations are down from about 12% to less than 1% of cases since the scheduling form was introduced in early 2012. The offices took to the…

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By: OR Manager
February 1, 2013
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Balancing staff productivity with open OR time

With hospitals under ever greater economic pressure, perioperative managers are expected to hew closely to staffing productivity targets, meaning they must match staffing as closely as possible to the hours of surgery actually performed. They’re also expected to grow surgical volume. Hospitals’ revenue depends on it. To grow volume, ORs…

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By: OR Manager
February 4, 2012
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Turnover? Focus on everything else

If your OR wants to improve on-time first-case starts and turnover time—focus on everything else. That's the advice of Integris Southwest Medical Center in Oklahoma City, recently recognized as a "leading performer" for OR first-case on-time starts by VHA, Inc. Its strong performance is the outgrowth of a 4-year focus…

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By: Pat Patterson
April 1, 2011
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Flipping ORs: Does this common practice make business sense?

Flipping, double teaming, running ORs back-to-back. These are a few terms for the practice of providing multiple ORs for particular surgeons. The practice is widespread. A show of hands during a breakout session at the recent Managing Today's OR Suite conference in Orlando found nearly everyone used this practice. Flipping…

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By: Pat Patterson
December 1, 2010
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Effective block scheduling rests on fair policies, active management

Second in a series on OR performance. Performing more cases with the same OR capacity and personnel—and having more satisfied surgeons, anesthesia providers, and staff. That may sound like utopia, but there is a way to make it happen. The answer is a well-run block scheduling program. The need to…

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By: OR Manager
July 1, 2010
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A toolkit for managing block scheduling

HCA Inc, the national health care company, has developed a block scheduling toolkit for its 165 hospitals. The toolkit includes decision points, algorithms for managing blocks, and sample policies. Here are HCA Inc's 10 decision points for block scheduling. 1. Is this the right time for block scheduling? About 75%…

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By: OR Manager
July 1, 2009
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Fine-tuning the block schedule? Now could be the right time

If you want to fine-tune the block schedule, now may be the time. A silver lining of the recession is that surgeons and staff may be more accepting of changes to the schedule than they might be otherwise. With the decline in elective surgery from the economic downturn, surgeons are…

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By: Pat Patterson
July 1, 2009
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